Verifying credentials: Afghan doctors come under govt scrutiny

All those practicing medicine will be required to get a licence from PMDC.

PESHAWAR: All documents of Afghan doctors working in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) will be verified by the country’s consulate, the provincial government said on Wednesday.

Health concerns had grown over the report of illegal clinics operating in the province where unqualified “doctors” were practicing without proper registration. All medical practitioners will now be required to get registered and verify their credentials from the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to continue their practice.

Board Bazaar is one of the main centres where Afghans have set up private clinics without being certified.

“We have given one week for all doctors to submit their educational documents at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar. Their credentials will be verified from their respective institutions and then sent to the PMDC to issue a licence,” said Health Regularity Authority Chairman Muhammad Muzafar Khan.

Minister for Health Syed Zahir Ali Shah along with representatives from the Fata Secretariat and Home and Tribal Affairs Department met the Afghan Counsel General Sayed Muhammad Ibrahimkhil on Tuesday.



Ibrahimkhil said the entire process of collecting all documents from Afghan doctors could take up to two months.

The police have raided illegal clinics several times, after which the doctors approached the consulate for help, Muzafar Khan said. “Around 184 doctors came to us for registration but we turned them away because the PMDC will issue the licences, after which they can practice wherever they want.”

We have received reports that some people who claim to be doctors do not even have a basic course in medicine, he added.

“The purpose of this practice is to determine who deserves to be registered,” Ibrahimkhil said.

The Afghan consulate does not have any record itself of the doctors running private clinics in K-P. Currently, 1.7 million registered Afghans reside in Pakistan and the government recently extended the repatriation period till June 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2013.